Too much too soon

Oh, God, I might be walking my dog too much. That’s according to the trainer. I said I was walking her a lot, like three-mile hikes in the afternoons, and sometimes a neighborhood jaunt in the mornings. He said she was still, at three and a half months, just a baby and I had to be careful not to wear out her joints while they are still developing. And running her isn’t too cool.

Damn. I don’t want to hurt her. Maybe I should just suspend this blog til she’s a year old and ready to tear. But I asked the vet’s assistant the other day—before I’d spoken to the trainer—and she said as long as the dog was up for it, that was okay. I’ll talk to the vet on Friday.

Nonetheless, Maya definitely seems to want to walk. And even after being told Saturday that I was walking her too much, I could tell that Sunday she wanted go get out—well, so did I. So we did the smaller hike around the lake, taking a sidetrack that’s supposed to be a shortcut but I didn’t have my Nike Plus with me so I couldn’t confirm that. We were gone an hour, though I didn’t push her as I’ve been doing. I gave her more time to snuffle thing out. That was also a recommendation of the trainer—not to worry about making her heel. She’s too little yet for that training and wolves in the wild don’t necessarily follow the leader but do obey the leader. Still, a couple sites I’ve read emphasized the importance of this with setters. Ugh! Que hago?

Today and yesterday we did just walks around the block, today around here and yesterday around the high school after she wouldn’t settle down enough to let me watch Fionna’s lacrosse game. The thing is Maya thinks everyone in the world wants to stop and pet her and tell her she’s a sweet, beautiful dog. She craves attention. Ha, great insight! That’s a dog.

One thing, though, Maya is great for hiking. We spooked a few deer the other day and she froze and the deer froze and we all just stood there in clear view of each other for minutes, nobody moving. Then the deer snorted and pranced parallel to us and stopped again and still Maya kept quite and just tracked her. THEN she got bore and sat down! But she never barked. She's great that way. We hear something in the woods and she stops and is completely silent. Bird dog. Hey, that's be a great way to see those ground bird that are so hard to spot. Have her flush 'em! Can’t image that’s too kosher in the birding world, but it’s not killing them. Anyway, I think Maya is way cool being quiet that way.